BATTLE TO SAVE JERSEY SHORE PITS NATURE AGAINST THE STATE

Published: March 7, 1987

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''In the past we'd say to every town, 'Your problem is terrible, and if we had any money, we'd help you out,' '' Mr. Weingart said. ''Nowadays, we've learned that we have to make choices, and that some places are worse off than others and that some places return more to the state than others.'' 'Fingers in the Dike'

This has angered mayors in many Shore communities. ''The mayors are totally frustrated, totally frustrated, because of the inaction in Trenton,'' said Leon S. Avakian, a municipal engineer who has emerged as the spokesman for oceanfront municipalities along the central shore. ''The only kind of master plan we have is when there is a storm that is about to destroy the whole coast, and then everyone jumps in to stick their fingers in the dike.''

Mr. Weingart, as the ranking bureacrat on the state's oceanfront issue, said he sympathises with the complaints of officials from low-priority areas, which, like most of Monmouth County, tend to be those that have allowed heavy construction on the barrier islands, restricting public access and reducing the statewide political support for the sand-pumping.

Those densely developed stretches of coast have become both physical and political hostages to the advancing ocean, experts say. The houses rooted on deep-driven piles interfere with the natural movement of the dunes and barrier islands on which they are built.

They also pose a barrier to public beach access, public parking and visitor facilities, making those beach dwellers call ''inlanders'' less willing to pay for shore protection. Protecting Real Estate

''I've always felt the shore protection should really be called real estate protection, because that's what we're really talking about,'' said D. W. Bennet, executive director of the American Littoral Society at Sandy Hook, a shorefront conservation group devoted to maintaining shore values and public access to the water.

''If the public is going to pay for it, they must be guaranteed some rights to that investment in the form of true acceess. That means parking, maybe a shuttle bus, places to change their clothes and toilets.''

Beyond the question of public access, officials like Mayor Winterstella and Mr. Avakian concede, lies a sense among inlander politicians that there has been so much construction on parts of the Jersey Shore that much of the attractiveness of the seafront has been lost anyway, and the public's stake in saving the area has been correspondingly reduced.

Mr. Winterstella said, ''People say, 'You live on the ocean, you should be willing to take the risk.' They say we shouldn't have put the houses there in the first place, but that's meaningless because the houses are already there.''